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Comment by notgoliath | Hacker News Reader

Software engineers using tools like ChatGPT isn't really about trying to game the system. It's more about how out-of-touch the old-school job application process feels. We really just want to make things easier on ourselves. We're in a time where we're all about automating the boring stuff. Why? Because we can. The whole idea of writing a cover letter feels ancient. Honestly, when I'm shooting out a ton of job applications, it's a total drag to whip up a special cover letter for each one. Most of us are just trying to find a gig that matches what we can do and what we want to do. But nope, we gotta jump through all these hoops and write these fancy stories, even if no one's really reading them.

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This is one of those “it depends” areas.

The author is talking about a fairly “classic” approach. I was a hiring manager for a long time, and had a similar (but more flexible) worldview. It may not age well.

I personally think that being able to leverage AI tools will be an important skillset, in the future, and would not disqualify AI submissions, right off the bat (but maybe not consider them a “leg up,” either). They will just be part of the landscape, going forward. A lot of “classic” résumé advice isn’t really much better than what ChatGPT will provide, anyway. For example, he rails against “Buzzword Bingo.” I hate that, too, but it is also a “classic” CV technique, and many professional submissions will be absolutely packed with jargon.

I just think that there isn’t any way to avoid having to dedicate some real time and effort to screening applicants. In my case, it was something that I took very seriously. I had to fight like crazy to get headcount, and I was hiring pretty high-functioning people for a small, rather “elite” team. I really can’t relate to having to sort through hundreds of CVs of folks right out of school.

The problem is that there are two types of roles you need to fill. The first type is the role where you need the best you can get, it is worth passing on good candidates to try to get the great ones.

The second type are the roles where you just need someone that passes the minimum bar, good enough will do.

Problem is, everyone thinks that their role, their company, can only operate with the first type, where really most of them are the second type.

Well, in my case, it was definitely the first type. It was the nature of my team.

Like I said, I can't relate to the other type, but that doesn't make it any less valid. It's just my personal journey.

To me, a good cover letter is about being actually motivated to apply to a specific job and then simply explaining why.

AI doesn’t help because if you can articulate your genuine motivation as a prompt for an AI, you should just use the prompt as the cover letter which will be a lot more effective than using the AI-generated letter, as the AI will muddy your authentic motivation and diminish its impact.

Absolutely. While in an ideal world, everyone would love to land a job that perfectly aligns with their personal values and interests, the reality is different. The current market conditions are dictating a lot of our job search and choices in companies. A vast number of talented engineers are out of work due to circumstances beyond their control and applying for multiple jobs becomes less about passion and more about survival. While a personalized cover letter sounds great in theory, when you're trying to send out dozens of applications to ensure you can keep the lights on the idealism takes a backseat to practicality.

Did anyone ever get hired by answering the question of "Why do you want to work for us?" with "Because I need a pay check"?

Because that's realistically like 80% of the motivation for most job/candidate pairings. In my case the remainder is usually like 15% "and it doesn't require selling my immortal soul to the devil" and 5% "your tech/problem is vaguely interesting".

Given the above, I feel like a typical cover letter is really an exercise in spin.

A cover letter is also supposed to explain why the company should want you to work for them. But this question isn't usually posed explicitly, which I guess is confusing for some people.

Also, almost no-one is motivated so purely by money that they are equally interested in all jobs that pay the same. You can probably think of some reason why you would want to work at company X as opposed to any other number of other companies that may be offering similarly-paying roles.

I don’t think the reason of “I already applied to all the better sounding ones, but they all ghosted me” is gonna win too many points either.

It really depends on the market. Sometimes there are great looking companies that you really would like to support because they somehow seem awesome to you. But you don’t always have that luxury.

> A cover letter is also supposed to explain why the company should want you to work for them.

For the generic cover letter that’s a reasonable thing to focus on. I’ve seen plenty of application forms that specifically ask the “why do you want to work for us” question (or even worse: “why do you want to work for us rather than our competitors?” which is even harder to answer, especially if it’s a tiny startup you’ve first heard of by reading their job post on LinkedIn).

>I don’t think the reason of “I already applied to all the better sounding ones, but they all ghosted me” is gonna win too many points either.

Not if you word it like that.

>I’ve seen plenty of application forms that specifically ask the “why do you want to work for us” question

That's what I'm saying. That's the formal question posed, but you can easily answer it by explaining why you'd be good at the role. "I want to work at X because I believe that I could make a significant contribution to Y given my Z skills".

> To me, a good cover letter is about being actually motivated to apply to a specific job and then simply explaining why.

Money. I want money. That's the reason I am applying to your job offer. I found a job offer that meets my skillset and I applied to it because I want an income.

But this isn't what you expect me to write, is it? You want something more, so I'm going to bullshit you so I can get the job that will allow me to get money

Ok, you want money. That's fine.

But what does the potential employer get out of the deal?

A diligent employee who gets the job done in an efficient way because they want to get home to enjoy the money they just earned?

Ok. If you can explain in a little more detail how you get the job done and what qualifies your assessment of the relative efficiency, then you probably have the basis of a decent cover letter.

Oh come on, 95% of jobs are CRUDs:

- data is in the database

- get data from the database using ORM solution

- pull stuff from Backend (from Frontend), using REST/Graphql

- display it in a nice way using whatever the du-jour styling solution they picked.

This isn't rocket science. Do I really have to make some BS about why I'm "excited" about this company or industry in the cover letter.

Look at the number of applicants at a linked job posting. It's usually high 3 digit numbers, sometimes 4 digits.

Are they really going to read all this flowery cover letters about how you feel about their company.

Respectfully, I disagree.

> Honestly, when I'm shooting out a ton of job applications, it's a total drag to whip up a special cover letter for each one.

I've generally had more luck making a small number of applications with a short but carefully considered cover letter. It can just be a few sentences. Sometimes people think they need to spam applications because most of their applications are rejected; but in fact most of their applications are rejected because they're generic application spam.

A cover letter can be the least bullshitty part of an application (at least if you are applying to a small or medium sized company). You can truthfully explain why you are interested in the role and why you might be good at it.

We toss out anything that looks written by AI.

That's so dumb. Dismissing applications based on the tools used rather than the content and qualifications is a missed opportunity. The goal should be to evaluate the substance and authenticity of an application, not to play "guess if it's AI-assisted or not." There's real talent out there looking for opportunities, and they might just be using AI to help navigate a convoluted application process.

I disagree but it doesn't matter because I'm sure we're not the only ones who do it. I'm just telling you what you're up against.

You know job applications aren't checkboxes that need to be filled, but an opportunity to promote yourself? Sending in a cover letter that's obviously AI generated gives an employer so many negative signals about you. A good cover letter could be a single sentence, yet you choose to spam us with crap that says nothing about you? Are you struggling to say why we should hire you, or are you just stupid? Into the trash.

So you review every single resume? Or do you most realistically toss out anything after say 200?

We manually comb through the reject pile looking for applications showing signs of AI so we can reject them twice.

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